About Amazon in the Community

The Amazon in the Community programme supports communities across the UK. Our goal is to help children and young people reach their potential by creating a positive learning environment; developing essential skills in literacy and science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM); and helping them find and develop a skilled career.

By giving less advantaged children and young people support, we want to play a role in improving their development, educational attainment and career prospects, ultimately helping them to lead better lives. As our world is becoming ever-more powered by digital technology, we want to ensure that the next generation has the right skills, capabilities and career opportunities to prosper.

To support our three goals, we’re running our own community programmes, and supporting those of leading charities. Our programmes include:

1. Creating a positive learning environment – We want more children to have an environment in which they can develop and learn. To meet this ambition, we are working with Magic Breakfast to fund 1 million breakfasts for over 5,000 students a year in 77 schools across the UK, as research shows that eating a healthy and nutritious breakfast improves pupil attainment. Through our work with In Kind Direct, we have donated over 170,000 products worth over £4.5 million, and in 2017 alone we donated £1.5 million in goods and 47,000 products to over 1,800 charities and voluntary organisations across the country.

2. Developing essential skills – We strive to help children get the skills they need to excel in the digital world, including literacy, maths and technology. We support Beanstalk, a literacy charity, to improve reading in schools by funding reading volunteers who support children who need extra help. We donate Kindle devices and books through our Kindle Reading Fund to the schools in our local areas. We have also launched a number of STEM initiatives, such as our Design a Drone competition and STEM Ambassadors programme in schools in Cambridge.

3. Inspiring a skilled career – We want to help young people get into skilled careers. We have launched the Amazon Web Services re:Start programme, providing free training and job placements to 1,000 young adults as well as military veterans and their spouses. We have created the Amazon Women in Innovation Bursary at Edinburgh University, the University of Cambridge and King’s College London, which gives talented lower-income female students the opportunity to study computer sciences at a leading university. We are also working with the charity Enactus to inspire entrepreneurship in universities by supporting social innovation projects set up by students.